


kingdoms burning bright (lean into the light)

by pawn_vs_player



Series: leave the light behind [9]
Category: Yandere Simulator (Video Game)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Dark, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Fatherhood, Gen, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Men Crying, Mental Instability, Psychological Trauma, Ryoba is heckin psycho, Ryoba is her own warning, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2020-10-03 19:47:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20458481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pawn_vs_player/pseuds/pawn_vs_player
Summary: The first time he looks at his daughter, he cries. His wife says, "She's so beautiful." The nurses murmur agreement.He says nothing. She has her mother's eyes.(story title from The Killers' "The Calling"; chapter titles from Fall Out Boy's "The Last of the Real Ones".)





	1. gold-plated (but what's inside you)

**Author's Note:**

> so, apparently, after months of radio silence, this is what i come back with. i'm as surprised as you are.  
(extra, untagged-for-reasons content warnings: brief contemplation of harming a child, suicidal thoughts, violent imagery, references to death during/because of pregnancy.)

Ryoba jokes that he "caught" her morning sickness, teasing him from the bathroom doorway. Her hand is splayed over her belly. Her face is flushed, several strands of hair sticking to her face with sweat. Her cravings have changed from first to second trimester. He hadn't minded the odd food combinations of the first few months; he'd relished them, really, because he'd be sent to the store multiple times a week to fetch her whatever she wanted, while she reclined on the sofa and groaned in discomfort. He'd be alone, outside the house, sometimes for almost an hour if he needed to really search for what it was she was craving. He hadn't been given that kind of freedom in years.

These cravings are different. The pregnancy websites had warned him, and he thought he'd be ready. (Thought after all the tries at getting Ryoba pregnant, he was prepared.)

He wonders if she knows why he's slumped against the toilet, pale and trembling. He wonders if her knowing would make a difference. Decides that no, it probably wouldn't.

He closes his eyes, lets her laugh at her own joke. Doesn't answer. Silence is safest with her.

-

She's so excited to feel the baby moving. She's so excited to be a mother. She's so excited to be the mother of his child.

He looks at the swell of her belly and feels sick. He feels the flutter of a tiny foot under his palm and wonders if this feeling is what sends animals running away from earthquakes that won't arrive for hours.

-

He asks about maybe doing a home birth. "It'll be just us," he says, as sweet as he knows how to be. "Just us and our little girl."

He thinks she's almost convinced, thinks maybe she'll say yes and stay home (where doctors and nurses won't help her, where so many things can go wrong, where bleeding can start and never quite stop) - and she shakes her head, smiling. "Maybe next time," she says, and he prays that he doesn't look as terrified as he feels, "I hear the second time's easier. But no. I want this to go as well as it can."

He nods. He's learned better than to argue.

(But he dreams of her on the floor, haloed in blood, skin white as ivory, and when he wakes nothing is fixed but her smile doesn't cut quite so deeply that day.)

-

The baby is born three days after her due date. Ryoba huffs and groans her way to the receptionist, blood and water already running down her legs. Her purple nightgown is ruined.

He sits in the waiting area. There's blood on his hands, on the floor. Her blood. Because she's in labor. She's giving birth. To their child. To their _daughter._

He hasn't wanted to scream so badly since the moment he first woke up in her basement, tied to that goddamn chair.

-

Ryoba is in labor for twenty-three hours. He stays at the hospital the entire time. He doesn't sleep. He washes his hands when a nurse suggests that he should, he eats when another nurse ushers him to the hospital cafeteria. He pretends he can't hear his wife screaming through the hospital walls. (Pretends the sound isn't the least bit satisfying.)

He hates himself for thinking it (he's never wanted to be anything like her, never wanted to enjoy anyone else's pain) but he hopes childbirth hurts her as much as she's hurt him. He knows it's not the same, knows it's an awful thing to want.

He wants it anyway.

-

He closes his eyes for a minute. Just a minute. He's so tired. The hospital chairs are far from comfortable and the lights are too bright but he's so tired. He just needs a minute. Only a minute.

He dreams of the girl, shirt stained dark over her stomach, eyes burning. She holds a bundle of yellow blankets in her arms like it's a bomb. She looks at him with pity as she hands it over to him.

There is no baby inside. There is only a stone carving of a baby, a little knife clutched in one tiny fist, mouth open in Ryoba's jagged-edged smile. The eyes are rounds of black glass set into the face.

He wakes to a nurse shaking his shoulder. "It's over," she says, and for a moment he doesn't understand. "They'll be ready for you in a moment," she adds, and he remembers, and thinks for the thousandth time that the girl got off easier than he did.

-

His daughter is quiet, to the point where every nurse and doctor comments on it. She is small, which is unusual for a baby born late, but Ryoba laughs and says all the women of her family are delicate little dolls when they're young.

The nurse passes his daughter into his arms, shows him how to cradle her against his shoulder. He sways over to the window with her, places a hand flat on her back. Even through the blankets she's warm. One of her tiny little hands rests against him, pinky finger curling into his shirt pocket.

He'd always wanted to be a father. If he closes his eyes and just listens to his own heartbeat, he could almost pretend that it's a different woman in the hospital bed, a different name waiting to be written on the birth certificate, a different ring on his finger. A different face waiting for him to confront.

The first time he truly looks at his daughter, he cries. Ryoba chuckles. "She's so beautiful," she says. The nurses murmur agreement. 

He says nothing. His daughter has her mother's eyes.

"She'll grow up to be just like me," Ryoba says, pride warm in her tone. He looks into the blank dark discs of his daughter's eyes and weeps. 


	2. done with having dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had to split this chapter bc the second half just... did not jive with what i had already written. so this story is going to be 4 chapters now. sorry??  
(chapter specific warnings: thoughts of harming a child, suicidal thoughts, mentions of domestic violence, unhealthy eating patterns, heavy shit.)

Ryoba takes the minimum possible family leave before returning to work. She loves their little girl, she tells him, even though he'd never doubted that; she loves their baby so much, but she wants to give him plenty of time with her before she starts growing up and needs her mother at her side, and besides one of them needs to be back at work - babies aren't exactly cheap!

He nods. Smiles. Kisses her cheek. Lets her kiss his mouth. Doesn't protest when she keeps kissing him. Waves goodbye when she finally pulls away and rushes out the door, already running late.

Leaves his daughter napping in her crib. Goes to the bathroom. Throws up.

-

He's gotten thinner. He hadn't noticed, but with Ryoba eating all those weird things during her pregnancy, plenty of which turned his stomach (and the mornings after her second-trimester cravings), he's just been eating less during the past ten months. He's always been slender, but standing with his daughter against his chest and catching a look in the bathroom mirror has him pausing to gape. He's not slender. He's _thin._ He can't see his ribs or anything, but his cheekbones are sharper, his collarbone pressing against his skin when he takes a deep breath.

He feeds his daughter her orange goop and sets her up with her toys. He doesn't have lunch. He sits on the sofa and watches his daughter.

He'd always wanted to be a father. He'd always thought a daughter, a sweet little girl to coddle and love, would be wonderful.

He looks at his daughter and sees her mother, and wishes with a fervor he'd thought he'd lost that he'd just been stubborn enough to get Ryoba to kill him all those years ago.

-

His daughter's room has a window overlooking the backyard, where Ryoba has a bright, sprawling garden he's not allowed to touch. He'll sit in her room, letting her nap on his bare chest (babies, supposedly, need plenty of skin-to-skin contact; he doubts that Ryoba's daughter will need much of that before her teens) as he looks out the window. It's summer. Bees float through the vibrant flowers, determined and free. He's always liked bees. 

He holds his daughter and looks out the window. The windowsill of his daughter's room on the second floor is sixteen feet above the ground. He could break a leg falling that distance. His daughter would probably break her skull.

He thinks about it, once or twice, when he makes the mistake of looking his daughter full in the face (she looks so much like her mother). Babies are so very fragile. Some babies just die out of nowhere, no determined cause, no one at fault, just a cold little body in a crib. He thinks about it, once or twice, hand resting on her back; her breaths are shallow compared to his, her lungs so much smaller. If she rolled over wrong she could suffocate. A pillow over her face could kill her. A fall off a counter could kill her. Anything in Ryoba's toolshed could kill her. Nearly anything in the world could kill her.

He thinks about it, looking into her blank eyes, waiting for her to cry like a normal baby, waiting for a sign that she's inherited more from him than from her mother. Ryoba's told her what happened to her own father, told him that she preferred him with his mind intact. He'd wondered, then, if it would be so bad to be that broken. But he looks at his daughter, cognizant of every detail of the world around them, and he knows that he could kill her. He could do it with his own hands or he could just leave her alone to get herself killed. He could end Ryoba's family curse right here, right now, and maybe if he told Ryoba that it had been on purpose she'd get so angry she'd finally kill him.

But his daughter shifts, or yawns, or blinks up at him with her doll eyes, and he sees himself in her (he sees his sister in her) and he can't bear to do any of the things he imagines.

(He wants to be better than Ryoba. He wants to teach his daughter to be better than Ryoba. He cannot, will not, _refuses_ to stoop to Ryoba's level. He will not kill. He will not kill a child. He will not kill _his_ child.)

Instead he sings her a song, or takes her to get a snack, or just smiles at her and tries very hard not to cry on her onesie.

-

He forgets himself once. Just once. He mentions to Ryoba how concerned he is about their daughter's quietness. "It'll wear off," she says, wiping down a knife from dinner. "She just has to meet the right boy."

And he nods, and smiles, and walks away before he breaks down at her feet. (She doesn't get to have any more of his pain.)

Later, he sits at his daughter's bedside and asks her to describe her mother.

"Smart," she says. "Pretty." She pauses for a long time. "Like me."

"Like you?"

"She said so." The little girl fiddles with the end of her braid. "'M empty. She said she was empty too, but I'll get gooder. She got gooder. You made her gooder."

If he squinted, he might be able to pretend that her eyes are shining with hope. But he knows they aren't.

"I didn't make her better," he says, very quietly. Dishes still clatter in the sink down the hallway. "I made her worse."

His daughter says nothing as he cries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter has the scene that got me writing this whole thing, ngl. just - him, sitting with his daughter, and thinking that maybe if he told ryoba that he'd killed their daughter she'd snap and kill him.


	3. here in search of your glory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> alternate chapter title: i love midori gurin and you should too  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year!!!! have some Pain.  
(warnings for this chapter: references to vomiting; references to death; implied sexual content feat. _ extremely dubious consent, _ bordering on outright rape, inherent to the aishi parents' relationship.)

Ayano is four years old when she meets Midori Gurin. The girl is loud and bouncy, chattering away as she tugs at Ayano's hand. "Come play," she says, over and over, grinning wide and white, "the bars are fun, come play!"

Ayano looks at him. He thinks about Ryoba, back when they were in school, and the wide berth all the other girls gave her. She walked through the halls with at least four inches on every side, like Moses if the sea had pulled back of its own accord out of fear of what he might do to it.

"Go play," he says. His voice is soft. He has forgotten how to be loud. Midori's voice is piercing but he listens anyway. He had forgotten how bright a child's laughter could be.

-

Ayano never calls Midori her friend. He isn't sure if Ryoba told her not to have friends, or if Ayano figured out that her mother would disapprove, or if Ayano just doesn't see Midori as a friend. But he thinks Midori is as close to a friend someone like Ayano (someone like Ryoba) can have. 

Ayano goes to Midori's house on Saturday afternoons; they watch cartoons together there. When Midori comes over, the girls do homework together: Ayano is better at fractions, but Midori has a clearer understanding of the books they're assigned. When they're done with homework, Midori makes Ayano watch anime with her, or throws an impromptu dance party, or ropes Ayano into helping him make dinner.

Midori fills their cold, quiet house with color and noise. He weeps in the bathroom the first few times she comes over. (Midori is so much like his si -- like _her_. Midori is so much like what he imagined the child he might have one day to be.) Ayano tolerates Midori's antics with her usual cool, blank-faced patience, but he could _swear_ that he's seen her mouth twitch a time or two.

Ryoba comes home on one of the Thursdays Midori is over. She is the same warm, charming woman she is to everyone outside the house while Midori is there. When the little girl leaves, she yanks him into the bedroom and demands an explanation.

"I don't want Ayano to be alone," he says.

"She won't be, once she finds her one!" Ryoba hisses. He digs his fingernails into his palm and sets his feet against the floor.

"W-wouldn't, wouldn't it be nice for her to have... someone else? In the meantime?"

"She doesn't _need_ anyone else." Ryoba's face is flushed, her dark eyes fiery. If she was someone else, he might call her beautiful.

He thinks about the chair in the basement. He thinks about the girl, her blank doll eyes and bloody shirt. He thinks about the years before Ayano came, the house empty of everything but the edges of Ryoba's smile. He thinks about his daughter, and the hint of expression on her face when she looks at Midori singing along to her favorite song.

"If Ayano has a friend over," he says, "she won't need me to watch her." 

He reaches out and takes her hand, his own damp with sweat. His heart pounds. He knows his eyes are more pupil than iris. 

He knows that fear looks like arousal in the right (wrong) light. He knows that Ryoba has never cared to learn the difference.

"It's been so long since we've had the time to be alone together," he says, and when her lips part he knows he's caught her. "I've missed you," he adds, because he has learned that nothing is ever a sure thing.

"_Darling_," she says, and kisses him.

He locks his hands behind her back and doesn't think about what comes next.

-

He dreams of a daughter, dark hair pulled into twin buns at the back of her head. She wears flower-patterned shirts and always has bandaids on her elbows from playing too roughly. She yanks at his sleeves and whines in his ear and steals the food off his plate.

He loves her so much.

(He's not allowed to love her anymore.)

She stares at him with his mother's eyes. She's sitting on her desk at school. There is a cord wrapped around her neck, bruises curled around her wrists.

_I miss you_, she tells him, and wipes his face when he cries. _That's supposed to be your job, nii-nii_, she teases him, and when he clings to her she lets him.

And then he wakes up, in Ryoba's bed, under the covers she picked out, in the room she decorated. It takes everything in him to keep from screaming.

-

(In another life, he decides, Ayano would have at least one sibling. Boy or girl or both or neither, he doesn't care, wouldn't care. Ayano would have a little sibling to love and annoy and protect, and she would never be alone. He would have a wife he loved, a wife who was utterly hopeless with a knife, who hated violence. His parents would visit on the weekends and spoil his children rotten. And his si -- )

(He looks across the room, at Ryoba in her chair, reading to Ayano.)

(He doesn't get another life.)

(He closes his heart back up and makes himself forget her again.)

-

Ayano goes to the Gurins' house on Saturday afternoons. Sometimes she sleeps over and comes home in time for lunch on Sundays. Midori comes over on Wednesdays after school. When her parents' schedules overlap, she spends the night in a nest of blankets on the floor of Ayano's bedroom.

It's the kind of opportunity Ryoba has been waiting years for.

-

He learned years ago how not to flinch or cry, how to bite his tongue and swallow every protest and scream, how to keep still and stay where she put him.

He teaches himself now to reach out first, to move with her, to say her name and tell her he loves her without having to throw up.

He still feels sick and scraped raw when it's over, but three of Midori's stuffed animals live in Ayano's room now and he caught Ayano hugging the blue fish one once, and that's -- 

That's worth it. That's worth everything.

-

He dreams of the girl, shirt stained dark over her stomach, eyes burning. She stands under the sakura tree, flaming blue petals falling around her. He can't hear anything, but he sees her mouth his name.

His eyes burn. It's been so long since anyone has said his name.

She reaches out for him with bone-pale fingers. He has never been able to do anything but reach back.

Her hands are cold and barely there. She presses her mouth to his cheek; it feels like nothing, the disappointed expectation of sensation. She says his name again: h e can almost hear it now. He curls his fingers gently around her slender wrists. (His hands are broader than they were the last time he touched her.)

He hasn't said her name in more than ten years. He's barely dared to think it. He savors the way it feels in his mouth.

Her eyes are awfully bright. They look nothing like they did when she was alive. They suit her better now. She says his name, and the sound burns all the way down inside his bones.

And then he wakes up, Ryoba's arms around his waist, Ryoba's hair under his cheek, Ryoba's mouth against his neck.

All the self-restraint in the world wouldn't be enough to keep him from weeping. It's just barely enough to keep him from vomiting all over the floor.

-

"What's the prettiest name you can think of?" Ayano asks him. When he squints at her, she explains, "Midori wants to name her new doll something beautiful."

His throat catches more than once on the name he wants to say. Ayano waits, patient as always, a perfect little statue with her big dark eyes and smooth hair and neutral expression.

"Hakai," he manages eventually. "O-or Mirei."

(He hasn't let himself think of their names in years.)

Ayano looks at him for a moment. "They're pretty," she says, and it almost sounds like she means it.

-

The blue fish that lives under her bed when Ryoba is home has a name now. He doesn't dare think it. He doesn't _dare_.

(He has tried so hard to see less of Ryoba in Ayano, but he hadn't expected to see _himself_ in her.)

-

Ayano grows in bursts. He watches her and Midori on the carpet, absorbed in anime; he takes his eyes away for a moment and when he looks back, Ayano is wearing her hair in a ponytail and talking about Midori's new friend. He sits to tell Ayano and the little cluster of classmates she brought home about his own schooldays; when he stands, it's to send his daughter to her first day of secondary school. He turns to look out the window and when he brings his attention back into the living room, Ryoba is on the sofa and Ayano is standing in the precise center of the room, her fingers knotted up and pressed into the hollow of her throat.

"I met someone today," she says, careful and precise. Her face is set in the blank expression she has worn since she was a toddler. She stands very still when Ryoba gets up to hug her.

He notices these things, but he doesn't understand them just now. Just now the world is going to pieces and falling out from under him. Just now the tentative little sprout of hope living inside his ribcage is rotting, spreading the sick-sweet smell of death through his lungs.

He remembers the only time he met Ryoba's father, the man's twitching fingers and empty eyes. He thinks of a chair and a letter, two girls whose only crime was loving him.

He looks at his daughter. She has her mother's eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the ghost girl's name is mirei, i have decided it. mirei kanojoru. i love her. yandev, make her as awesome as i think she is. and give papa aishi a sister.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not entirely up-to-date on current yansim lore, so i really just looked at a couple wiki pages and proceeded with my headcanons. sorry not sorry.


End file.
